How we made waterfall in “Season : A letter to the longer term”

Hello ! Since I’m allowed to share my work and the way we’ve carried out it in Season : A letter to the longer term, I assumed it may be good to share the method of creating our waterfall, from ref to end result, with some technical ideas, it may be good info for college students ! Let’s begin

SEASON : A LETTER TO THE FUTURE ART DIRECTION

What’s Season : A letter to the longer term?

Season: A letter to the longer term – Launch Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Video games – YouTube

Season is a story recreation launched in early 2023 the place you discover the world to document what you possibly can. It’s a peaceable recreation, the place you possibly can bike, document sound and {photograph} the surroundings, individuals, and life.

On the artwork aspect, Season has a robust illustrative artwork path, primarily impressed by conventional artwork like portray, with two-tone shading.

VFX sensible, it was primarily environmental, so we needed to emphasize this artwork path with much less transparency and robust coloration.

What in regards to the waterfall then ? Properly, our refs have been real-life, portray, but in addition anime motion pictures like Ghibli. Combining actual life and the artist’s imaginative and prescient helped us to provide you with our personal stylization and imaginative and prescient of the waterfall. Let’s check out our refs :

Now that we have now decided our half, how can we do it? Properly, after just a few fast exams on totally different strategies, the simpler and extra attention-grabbing was to interrupt these components into totally different meshes. It permits us a greater management, it’s simpler to work in shader, we wish to keep away from transparency as a lot as we will so we’ll make it both opaque or masked. However one necessary level : we will take into consideration poly density for WPO, relying on the impact. Spotlight and water physique, for instance, don’t want so as to add WPO on it, since we have now a Foam layer to cover edges. so we will have decrease density on it, and better density on the froth half. That being stated, let’s check out this half first :

BREAKING DOWN THE FOAM

First and foremost, I can’t advocate sufficient to look at Simon’s discuss on RiME impact ( ‘Stylized VFX in RiME’ by Simon Trümpler | Unreal Fest Europe 2018 | Unreal Engine – YouTube ). It was a place to begin for our pondering course of.

Our waterfalls are smaller, so the underside foam needs to be smaller too, and we wished to maintain a much less spiky-shape, one thing rounder, softer. For that, I handpainted a tiled texture with spherical form (method realized in VFX Apprentice, much like the feel you could find right here https://www.artstation.com/art work/Krnwno) and utilized blur. The thought is to have the softest gradient potential whereas conserving clear form. That is the one for WPO. After which, I’ve made a masks to permit me to “cheat” the 2 tone shapes within the materials. Nothing loopy within the shader, although because of the approach we managed our totally different instances of day within the recreation, the colour is managed by a MaterialParameterCollection. We may optimize it a bit by having the masks in Vertex Colour, however I wished to have the ability to management it.

In niagara, I’m controlling the spawn price, field location to make it kind of wider relying on our Waterfall measurement, and with Particle Alpha worth subtracting to the opacity masks, I’m including a pleasant dissolve. The overlay of a number of particles provides this gentle impact, with out a lot overdraw as a result of it’s a masked particle!

For the froth layer, the identical method was used. I used some noise and tiled texture to create a masks with this form. First I labored on the outer form, after which added an inside noise so as to add just a few foam parts taking place the water. To assist promote the accelerated motion of the water, you are able to do an influence on the V axis of the UV, with a worth decrease than 1. it’s going to deform your UV to stretch a part of it and squeeze the highest. Since our waterfalls are divided into a number of waterfalls, we needed to break the repetition of the fabric. you should utilize the thing place to regulate a parameter so every occasion shall be distinctive. if you happen to divide it by a scalar you possibly can modify how briskly the worth adjustments whereas transferring. The mesh is created relying on the waterfall’s form, with excessive poly density to have a easy WPO, however with a LOD system. We tone down WPO with digital camera distance so it doesn’t look bizarre with much less poly, the thought is to not see any transition.

BREAKING DOWN THE WATERBODY

Alongside the froth, the water bodyis clearly probably the most necessary components. In any case, it’s known as a waterfall !

We needed to make it match our water shader, so plenty of the fabric is re-use. What’s attention-grabbing to us right here is how we determined to deliver again our references. In anime motion pictures like “Spirited Away” we will see darker water tint and whiter texture taking place (we will additionally discover the identical sample in plenty of cartoon refs).

For the darker tint, we simply make a masks multiplied by a noise, and this masks permit us to regulate coloration variation

For the sample transferring down, we truly use a sharper model of the froth’s WPO texture, with out the blur step. we stretch it with an influence, as we did in foam shader, we merely masks the highest of the waterfall through the use of the Vertex regular. To keep away from plenty of repetition and UV points, the feel is world aligned, so every occasion is offset a bit, and we will have extra management on the dimensions of the sample with out eager about UV.

BREAKING DOWN THE HIGHLIGHTS

For the spotlight, I wish to thank Filo Filo: Sketch #9 WIP – #4 by Filo , I used the method I realized from this sketch. As proven earlier, on the waterbody, We did a masks multiplied by a stretched noise, on a masked materials, with brighter coloration than the waterfall on a separate mesh with decrease density.

BREAKING DOWN THE SPLASHES PARTICLE

Nothing fancy right here : 2 cell noise with totally different measurement and pace added collectively to present a extra advanced form multiplied by a RadialGradientExponential to restrict it to a spherical form and erosion managed in Niagara. We use the identical operate on all our water shaders to regulate coloration relying on the time of day.

MY TAKEAWAY

Time to wrap this up. So, what can we study from this ?

• First factor of significance : That is the results of a looooot of forwards and backwards to get what we wish. I really feel prefer it’s necessary to keep in mind that we have now to fail, study, repeat, see with our lead or idea artist, get different’s perspective, on the finish it’s nonetheless a group work. An important factor to remember is to work towards your artwork path, and take a look at your refs so much.

• Re-usability is essential ! Lot of texture has been shared between all these totally different shaders, it’s an effective way to save lots of time and perf too. There’s a step earlier than the polish the place you’re in your shader with current textures, it’s time to make take a look at with what you’ve gotten in texture. There’s an superior discuss this step in texture from Simon (once more ! ) : (Not) Create Textures for VFX – YouTube (That is aGDC discuss but when I keep in mind proper , Simon did one other one with extra clarification, be at liberty to share it please !) . But additionally plenty of shader components, that we will collapse to a operate, have been re-used. and that is a lot of a time saver. Time is our most treasured useful resource, so if you happen to see you’re utilizing the identical group of node inside your shader, do a operate, expose it to library, remark it (all the time remark your work) and voila, you possibly can reuse it quicker and with only one node.

• Optimize when it’s time to optimize. Don’t go loopy in your shader pondering “I’ll do it later” in fact, however don’t prohibit creativity with optimization at first. You’ll discover your approach. It’s simpler to chop/cut back scope than so as to add one thing with a brief deadline. Make it look good.

• The RTVFX neighborhood is a gem. Even if you happen to don’t discuss that a lot, make sure you lurk. Everybody’s keen to share their data, I used to be in a position to obtain that as a result of I realized from others.

It was lengthy, let me know any suggestions, thought on this breakdown, if in case you have any query I’ll attempt to reply it
Good time to thank my lead Stephen Tucker, and everybody right here who shares info, I like to recommend you to look at Simon’s discuss so much.

If you wish to see others Season’s VFX you could find them right here : https://www.artstation.com/kalomnia and there’s additionally smaller breakdown for two different impact !